Tag Archives: bob dylan

Post navigation

I have written a bit about Harry Belafonte over the years, but not nearly enough. I am afraid his magnitude may not be appreciated until after he is dead. Harry Belafonte is a great man. You know him as the banana boat guy. There is so much more music. He invented his own sound and style. Think of it, who else sings those happy reggae-ish calypso type catchy tunes? What the hell is calypso? I have no idea, as I hadn’t heard of it before Harry Belafonte. In fact, like Hunter Thompson and ‘Gonzo Journalism’, I am not sure it existed before Harry. There is nothing like it. As I said, you know the banana boat song (god, I hope so) but hereareafewmore. Yeah, he did ok with music. He was the first artist in history to sell a million records. Read that again. It wasn’t the Beatles, or Michael Jackson, or Nickelback, or Elvis.

Mr. Belafonte has also done so much more for humanity that transcends his music. You love Martin Luther King, right? Yes, we all do. What did you do, though? I mean, not just liking the guy or throwing up a quote to your facebook wall on Feb 1… but what have you personally done about racial segregation in the United States? Right. Me neither. Well, I did writethis… but I am no Harry Belafonte. Oh, and I am not waiting until February to acknowledge black history. Here at I am Correct, every month is black history month, crackers! I digress, back to the story.

MLK famously wrote a book called ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’. MLK got arrested, a lot. That is kinda the deal with civil disobedience. Harry Belafonte was the guy who bailed him out every time. That is putting a target on your head. When MLK was locked up in the deep south, he was the most hated man in the country to those folks. In walks Harry and hands them the cash to set him free. That is balls of steel.

Oh, then he discovered Bob Dylan and gave him his first job. When Bob Dylan moved to New York in 1961, it was Harry who gave him his first job. Bob was Harry’s harmonica player. Are you thinking “how is that possible? Dylan is a terrible harmonica player?” You should be, it’s true. I don’t know what Harry saw in Dylan, but we owe him huge thanks for keeping Dylan afloat as he discovered his thing.

Am I going to tell you that Harry Belafonte also invented electricity, and puppies, too? Well, I can’t prove he didn’t.

Each and every one of you has the power, the will and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live in. … You should go through life knowing, “I am somebody.”

Who said that? Mandela? MLK? Ghandi? Chad Kroeger? Nope, it was our boy Harry. How about this gem from Maya Angelou Harry Belafonte?

He is still alive and recording and writing and generally being the great fucking human that he is. I am not claiming that Harry isn’t being recognized by society. Thankfully, he very much is. Just this week he is being honored by Harvard. Last year he was honored by the Kennedy Center. It’s a big deal there. I am not sure what they do, or what it means, but the president shows up. So, it’s a big deal.

Ok. Time out. Let’s have a little song and a smile from that man himself. Here he is with Steven Colbert riffing on some genuine classics.

So, the intellectual elite know all about him. I am not telling them the virtues of Harry Belafonte, I am telling you. Like you, I wasn’t invited to either event. They love Harry, whoever ‘they’ are. I just wanna make sure you do, too. Lastly, he is also impossibly charming. Here is from a year or two ago on the Colbert Report. I would embed it below, but it got pulled from youtube. So, here is a link from Colbert’s official (and very cool) site. Stay for the whole thing. At the 8:30 mark into the interview, they (Colbert and Belafonte) sing together. It’s pretty terrific.

I just found a biopic on Harry here. Can’t say how good it is, never seen it. Truth be told, I didn’t know it existed until 4 minutes ago. I am going to stream it now, it’s $3.

Thank you, Harry Belafonte.

**** update Sept 2019

I am just about done with Harry’s autobiography, ‘My Song’. I learned a lot that I want to share with you quickly. I mention above his impact on the civil rights’s movement. Harry Belafonte is one of the single most important and influential figures in the Black Civil Rights movement. Let’s say there is a top 5 of GREAT black leaders. MLK would be there, as would Nelson Mandela. Harry is in there, too. What I learned in the Belafonte book is his single-handedly bankrolled ALL of this. Remember those voter registration drives, where white college kids drove down to the South to register voters (and sadly… get killed doing so). Belafonte paid for it all. He kept MLK solvent, as well. MLK was so the real deal, he gave away all of his money and possessions. He wouldn’t charge to speak. He walked the walk, a la St Francis of Assisi. He and Harry were best friends, and it was Harry who was flying Martin all over the country to speak. It was Harry who bailed him out of jail every time.

You know about black civil rights from the late 60’s. Harry and Martin were fighting this battle together since the mid – 50s. See, Harry doesn’t just have a good heart. Harry was crazy fucking rich at the time. He was the first artist ever to sell over a million copies of a single record. Note that I did not say ‘first black artist’, you racist. He was the first. In his prime he was selling millions of records, a huge movie star, and a VERY big club draw across the country. Because of his mojo, he was able to break so many color barriers of that era. Example? When Harry started doing big Vegas shows, he wasn’t allowed to come in the front door or walk around the casinos. He and his band where not even allowed to stay in those hotels. As his star rose, he got to make his own terms. One of my favorite moves of true civil disobedience was to go swimming one day at the big pool at one of those casinos. People freaked the fuck out, like that scene in Caddyshack.

I think one of the reasons he was so successful as an activist was by staying under the radar. He preferred to operate more behind the scenes, as a silent partner of sorts. Smart move. Had anyone known back then how incredibly valuable he was to the movement, they would have killed him, too!

I am so thankful and so happy that he is still alive as I write this (Sept 2019). The man is 92! Sadly, though, I think the reason you are reading this is because he likely just passed away. Odds are, that will be the next time I read this as well.

What else has he done? In case that wasn’t enough. He worked very hard to end apartheid in South Africa! You don’t do that with letters and marches and hugs and good vibes and benefit shows (btw, ‘USA for Africa and their song ‘We are the World’? Yeah, that was ALL Harry Belafonte as well). The way to crush a tyrannical regime is through money. By cutting all of it off. The key term is ‘divestment’. This is getting all companies and governments to stop doing business with South Africa. Belafonte successfully such diverse and important financial institutes as the teacher’s union. the California teacher’s union pension is valued at 230 BILLION dollars. Luckily, teachers tend to believe in justice. Of course, that kind of money… you invest. So, the California teachers union told their banker investment people ‘don’t do ANY business in South Africa. Don’t even do business with people who do business with South Africa.’ Pepsi, for example, took Belaonte’s lead and pulled all their business interests out of South Africa. Coke, on the other hand, did not. In fact, quite the opposite. Coke saw that Pepsi was leaving and took advantage of that gap to move in and make a monopoly in the market. Now, am I saying specifically that “Coca Cola hates black people”? Yes. Yes I am. In fact, i am going to put that in the tags so it becomes searchable.

Harry is one of the most important people alive, and we are all better for having him on our Earth. If there was a black Mt Rushmore… well… it wouldn’t be in South Dakota on scared native land. But it would have Harry Belafonte on it, it would have Nelson Mandela, it would have Bob Marley, it would have Chris Brown, it would have Barack Obama. You get the idea.

God bless you Harry! You have done SO much for society and music and love and human rights. AND…. don’t forget… dude discovered Bob Dylan and put him on a record! If you know how much I love Dylan, you know that is my favorite part.

Like a few other pieces I have done over the years… I want to stop and treasure the man before he dies. Too often, only when someone dies do we stop and appreciate them. Let’s not wait any longer!

Here is a look at my fledgling ‘still alive’ series. Of course, many have since passed on.

If you could only have 5 childhood memories to recall for the rest of your life, who would they be?

I had nothing but an amazing childhood and the world’s greatest parents. There isn’t a single regret in the amazing way our parents loved and took care of us. To pick only 5 moments would denigrate the decades they invested in us. I am lucky enough to still have my mom around, and she is my favorite person in the whole world. Don’t tell my wife I said that.

If you could only eat 5 things for the rest of your life, who would they be?

Pad Thai, Carne Asada, Gyro sammich, sesame chicken, and coffee

If you could only have five words to describe the world what would they be?

Well, it’s not dumb… but those videos of soldiers coming home and surprising their kids gets me EVERY time in the feely parts.

What is the hardest you can ever remember laughing?

About a year ago, give or take several months, wifey and I were driving. We were listening to the comedy station and it was a Patton Oswalt bit about a fat guy trying on pants. He compared it to a dying soldier. I can’t begin to do it justice, but we were laughing to hard we had to pull over to compose ourselves. I SO wish I could link it here, but I was looking for it recently and couldn’t find it.

Btw… this comedy radio channel is brilliant! Where was this my whole life, and why has no one tried it before?

When was the last time you cried?

We covered that above

What is your emotional rescue?

Bob Dylan music. Specifically, Blood on the Tracks is my go to for everything. I listen at least once a week. Can not possibly say enough good things about early Bob Dylan. Btw, those hipsters who want to say ‘before he went electric’ are just wrong. His best stuff is his early electric work (1965-66) and Blood on the Tracks came a full ten years after that. It is, however, almost totally acoustic.

Describe a new emotion you have just invented?

This happened about 5 days ago. I saw a photo of a guy doing something dumb that went viral. In his face, I could see he was already regretting it. He was ‘pre-gretting’ it. Or… ‘pregretting’

I didn’t like any of the questions from my idiot editor. So, I am going to my old fallback. Setting my phone to full random on songs. Going to tell my relationship to each song or band, in the order that they come up.

Bury Me – Dwight Yoakum

I just love this guy, and I am not a country fan by most definitions. To me, his music is folk music. I finally got to see him a couple years ago, at Red Rocks no less, and it was fantastic. I don’t know how I came about his music, but for years I have been performing ‘Fast as You’ with my band, and alone camping.

It’s funny to me that he is an actor. Being actor is about being a face. Yet, find me one publicity photo of his face. You can’t. Wait… I googled a pic of him without that hat. Never mind, Dwight, put that hat right back on.

One of the few Bobby songs that we all love and appreciate. And their ain’t many. Over the years, I have finally come to really appreciate Bob. Basically, it took Jerry dying to realize what a treasure we always had in Bobby. We took him for granted, and I will personally cop to it. However, may I note that this was a big song he was doing when I was following the band in summers of ’90 and ’91. He would do this caterwauling at the end that was just sad. We used to call him ‘Bobby Cheese’. Ok, maybe not ‘we’…. So much as ‘me’.

Side note, this comes from the album Terrapin Station. My god I love this album. Terrapin isn’t just my favorite Dead song… it is a super rare moment where the recorded original version is just perfection. Most of their catalogue never really got great until it was played live.

Nice Boys – Guns & Roses

This is from the album before Appetite. Can I tell you something? I was listening to Guns & Roses BEFORE Appetite for Destruction came out. Credit goes to Tim Ashton, of course. They had an EP called ‘live like a fucking suicide’. It was later re-released as side two of ‘Lies’.

Hello… sorry – Todd Snider

I love Todd Snider, he is a folk troubadour, a la Arlo Guthrie, and his father before him. This isn’t a song, but an intro to one of his wonderful live collections… where he tells as many stories as he does sing songs. Got to see him live a few years ago, and it was everything I hoped it would be. One of my favorite clips you can find online is this. Too Soon To Tell.

Buckets of Rain – Bob Dylan

well, it’s no surprise the list featured the Dead and Bob Dylan. I still listen to Dylan almost daily. This is from the masterpiece ‘Blood on the Tracks’. This is a rather jaunty look at his miserable divorce… which the whole album is about. Young Bob Dylan was a God, and I am thrilled he got the Pulitzer. To me, 1974’s Blood on the Tracks is a mystery, of sorts. This is the music Bob Dylan was making up to 1966. This should be the successor to ‘Blonde on Blonde’. However, Bob went weird for almost a decade. For Bob to ‘go weird’… well that is saying something. Lay Lady Lay? What the hell was that? What was that thing he was doing with his voice?

It’s like Bob went in to witness protection from 1966 to 1974. Then, he comes back with Blood on the Tracks… and it is like he was never gone.

Yes. I am a very, very big fan. His writing has had as much impact in my life as any other single human.

Why a Pulitzer prize in writing for a musician? Here is why… what author do you listen to every day? Or even once a year? No matter how great a book is, you read it and it’s over. when music is great, you listen often… over and over? you can have sex listening to music, you can’t do it on a book. I listen to Dylan almost daily, and I can’t even say that about Alice in Wonderland!

Do you have a favorite Bob Dylan song?

This would change annually, but of late it has been ‘Positively 4th St’. This came from such an amazingly fruitful time (’68) that it wasn’t even put on an album. Here is how much I love Bob – I have 6 Cds and 9 box sets and 4 dvd collections ALL that just cover his first 6 years.

I wish I could tell you it was Blood on the Tracks, which I think is an absolute masterpiece. BUT… there are some absolute dogs on there. I mean… Lilly and the Jack of Hearts? To call that filler would be hurtful to things that fill things. So, what albums do? I have to name a few, and they all came out very close together.

That is Paul Simon, from the ‘Late Great Johnny Ace’. It is remarkable not just for being one of the best songs ever written, it is remarkable that you have never heard it… nor heard of it. That lyric is so great it hurts my heart to think of writing that good. I mean… is there a song before? Was there a girl in the song? No, it’s nonsense. It’s your imagination. That is what makes it so great. It’s as if you two were in the middle of a great conversation, and he lets that drop. I guess if we have to give that girl a face and a name, it would be Carrie Fisher. That is Princess Leia to you, to whom Paul was married. Yeah, not just great songwriter… dude is banging the Princess of the friggin’ Federation. You better check yourself!

You date Taylor Swift for a Year before breaking up. What is the name of her next album?

“I never fully appreciated, or understood him”

OK, this is it. The executioners are taking aim. What is the last song you want to hear?

Mayonaise from the Smashing Pumpkins. Studio version. I think this is my favorite song in the whole world. It also embodies the Smashing Pumpkins, and Billy C, so perfectly. Pretty, thoughtful, spacy, and balls out rock your skull off… all in the same piece. Here is a secondary live, acoustic, on the fly version. You may watch this only after you have heard the studio version about 30 times and cried to it.

It’s a quiet little genre and only you enjoy it – what is it?

Just about everything Astrud Gilberto ever did. You know her as the ‘girl from Ipanema’ lady. She is that, and so much more. Her and her hubby, along with a couple others (like Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobin) basically invented Bossa Nova… AND got it to the states. Now that you know that, you will start to notice that a muzac version of Girl from Ipanema plays in they background in all elevator scenes. I know it is one of the most iconic songs ever recorded. Think about this, is there a better known melody in all of music? There are a precious few – ‘My Favorite Things’, Fur Elise’, ‘New York New York’, ‘Star Spangled Banner’… these are all melodies that you know whether you like it or not. Same with ‘Girl from Ipanema’. Why then do I regard this as a ‘secret quiet little music genre’? Because – popular culture has only used that song as an ironic hipster statement. That song is regarded as the most boring and sanitized song ever. It is used to define something lame. No sir, it was groundbreaking at the time – 1964.

when I say ‘groundbreaking’, that isn’t hyperbole. When you hear ‘Purple Haze’, you don’t think anything about it. When people heard that first, in 1967, their faces exploded. No one had made noise like that, and certainly no one had seen a black kid playing rock.

There is a great story that may or may not be true about Miles Davis meeting the first lady (Nancy Reagan). Supposedly, she said to him “and what do you do that got you a seat at the President’s table?” having no idea who the super creepy, probably super high, and extra black man in front of her at dinner was. His response – straight-faced, Davis replied:

I have written a bit about Harry Belafonte over the years, but not nearly enough. I am afraid his magnitude may not be appreciated until after he is dead. Harry Belafonte is a great man. You know him as the banana boat guy. There is so much more music. He invented his own sound and style. Think of it, who else sings those happy reggae-ish calypso type catchy tunes? What the hell is calypso? I have no idea, as I hadn’t heard of it before Harry Belafonte. In fact, like Hunter Thompson and ‘Gonzo Journalism’, I am not sure it existed before Harry. There is nothing like it. As I said, you know the banana boat song (god, I hope so) but hereareafewmore. Yeah, he did ok with music. He was the first artist in history to sell a million records. Read that again. It wasn’t the Beatles, or Michael Jackson, or Nickelback, or Elvis.

Mr. Belafonte has also done so much more for humanity that transcends his music. You love Martin Luther King, right? Yes, we all do. What did you do, though? I mean, not just liking the guy or throwing up a quote to your facebook wall on Feb 1… but what have you personally done about racial segregation in the United States? Right. Me neither. Well, I did writethis… but I am no Harry Belafonte. Oh, and I am not waiting until February to acknowledge black history. Here at I am Correct, every month is black history month, crackers! I digress, back to the story.

MLK famously wrote a book called ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’. MLK got arrested, a lot. That is kinda the deal with civil disobedience. Harry Belafonte was the guy who bailed him out every time. That is putting a target on your head. When MLK was locked up in the deep south, he was the most hated man in the country to those folks. In walks Harry and hands them the cash to set him free. That is balls of steel.

Oh, then he discovered Bob Dylan and gave him his first job. When Bob Dylan moved to New York in 1961, it was Harry who gave him his first job. Bob was Harry’s harmonica player. Are you thinking “how is that possible? Dylan is a terrible harmonica player?” You should be, it’s true. I don’t know what Harry saw in Dylan, but we owe him huge thanks for keeping Dylan afloat as he discovered his thing.

Am I going to tell you that Harry Belafonte also invented electricity, and puppies, too? Well, I can’t prove he didn’t.

Each and every one of you has the power, the will and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live in. … You should go through life knowing, “I am somebody.”

Who said that? Mandela? MLK? Ghandi? Chad Kroeger? Nope, it was our boy Harry. How about this gem from Maya Angelou Harry Belafonte?

He is still alive and recording and writing and generally being the great fucking human that he is. I am not claiming that Harry isn’t being recognized by society. Thankfully, he very much is. Just this week he is being honored by Harvard. Last year he was honored by the Kennedy Center. It’s a big deal there. I am not sure what they do, or what it means, but the president shows up. So, it’s a big deal.

So, the intellectual elite know all about him. I am not telling them the virtues of Harry Belafonte, I am telling you. Like you, I wasn’t invited to either event. They love Harry, whoever ‘they’ are. I just wanna make sure you do, too. Lastly, he is also impossibly charming. Here is from a year or two ago on the Colbert Report. I would embed it below, but it got pulled from youtube. So, here is a link from Colbert’s official (and very cool) site. Stay for the whole thing. At the 8:30 mark into the interview, they (Colbert and Belafonte) sing together. It’s pretty terrific.

I just found a biopic on Harry here. Can’t say how good it is, never seen it. Truth be told, I didn’t know it existed until 4 minutes ago. I am going to stream it now, it’s $3.

Thank you, Harry Belafonte.

**** update Sept 2019

I am just about done with Harry’s autobiography, ‘My Song’. I learned a lot that I want to share with you quickly. I mention above his impact on the civil rights’s movement. Harry Belafonte is one of the single most important and influential figures in the Black Civil Rights movement. Let’s say there is a top 5 of GREAT black leaders. MLK would be there, as would Nelson Mandela. Harry is in there, too. What I learned in the Belafonte book is his single-handedly bankrolled ALL of this. Remember those voter registration drives, where white college kids drove down to the South to register voters (and sadly… get killed doing so). Belafonte paid for it all. He kept MLK solvent, as well. MLK was so the real deal, he gave away all of his money and possessions. He wouldn’t charge to speak. He walked the walk, a la St Francis of Assisi. He and Harry were best friends, and it was Harry who was flying Martin all over the country to speak. It was Harry who bailed him out of jail every time.

You know about black civil rights from the late 60’s. Harry and Martin were fighting this battle together since the mid – 50s. See, Harry doesn’t just have a good heart. Harry was crazy fucking rich at the time. He was the first artist ever to sell over a million copies of a single record. Note that I did not say ‘first black artist’, you racist. He was the first. In his prime he was selling millions of records, a huge movie star, and a VERY big club draw across the country. Because of his mojo, he was able to break so many color barriers of that era. Example? When Harry started doing big Vegas shows, he wasn’t allowed to come in the front door or walk around the casinos. He and his band where not even allowed to stay in those hotels. As his star rose, he got to make his own terms. One of my favorite moves of true civil disobedience was to go swimming one day at the big pool at one of those casinos. People freaked the fuck out, like that scene in Caddyshack.

I think one of the reasons he was so successful as an activist was by staying under the radar. He preferred to operate more behind the scenes, as a silent partner of sorts. Smart move. Had anyone known back then how incredibly valuable he was to the movement, they would have killed him, too!

I am so thankful and so happy that he is still alive as I write this (Sept 2019). The man is 92! Sadly, though, I think the reason you are reading this is because he likely just passed away. Odds are, that will be the next time I read this as well.

god bless you Harry! You have done SO much for society and music and love and human rights. AND…. don’t forget… dude discovered Bob Dylan and put him on a record! If you know how much I love Dylan, you know that is my favorite part.

Like a few other pieces I have done over the years… I want to stop and treasure the man before he dies. Too often, only when someone dies do we stop and appreciate them. Let’s not wait any longer!

Here is a look at my fledgling ‘still alive’ series. Of course, many have since passed on.